High-Tech Shipping Containers Put U.S. Students and Syrian Refugees Face-to-Face

With high-tech shipping containers, Brooklyn-based arts and technology collective Shared Studios is making the world feel a little smaller.

The group’s project, called “the Portal,” places shipping containers decked out with audio and visual equipment in locations all over the world, with the goal of helping people come “face-to-face with someone in a distant Portal live and full-body, as if in the same room,” according to the Shared Studios website.

The latest installation, at Harvard University, is meant to allow students at Harvard and the nearby Cambridge Rindge and Latin School to connect with Syrian refugees living in Germany, Jordan, Palestine and Iraq, the Associated Press reports.

The Portal will be stationed at the university from Saturday through Tuesday. Prior to the stop in Cambridge, the project’s shipping containers landed in countries including Cuba, Iran, Kenya, Mexico and Rwanda. There’s also currently a location in New York’s Times Square, which will be open through November 10.